Community garden project moves forward

A Green River student will receive $1,000 to start community garden projects at local schools.

Sarah Quick, 12, a future Lincoln Middle School student, recently returned home from a Fuel of to Play 60 Student Ambassador Summit, which took place in Minneapolis. During the summit, Quick participated in numerous activities, such as creating new pizza recipes, making a skit, and being involved with a talent show.

She also had the opportunity to play flag football with a couple of NFL football players and visit a large, dairy farm.

When she wasn’t busy having fun, she presented her idea about building a community garden to the group. She then received a $1,000 grant to carry out this idea.

Quick, who was the only one from Wyoming, was happy to receive the grant and excited to meet and make new friends while at the summit.

According to the website, http://www.fueluptoplay60.com “Fuel up to Play 60 is an in-school nutrition and physical activity program launched by National Dairy Council and NFL, in collaboration with the USDA, to help encourage today’s youth to lead healthier lives.”

To attend one of the organization’s summits, a student must be at least 11 years old, at least in the sixth grade, have 45,000 points and a program advisor registered at their school.

Lori Hastert, Monroe Intermediate School teacher and Fuel Up to Play 60 advisor, said the Fuel up to Play 60 website has a guide on how to obtain points. Quick obtained points by picking plays and challenges from the website and then completing them.

For example: the play 60 group at Monroe Intermediate School hosted a chef’s night at the school. Students and their parents were invited to attend the event and meet local chefs.

Tiffany Turner, MIS physical education and health teacher, said in the past the group has also hosted a swim night and a pumpkin run for the school

The play 60 leadership group contains about 10 kids, however, the rest of the school are members. The leadership group is responsible for planning events.

When the group isn’t hosting big events, they are busy hosting smaller events during each month, such as brain-break and healthy food choice sessions. Hastert said the group acts as an advocacy group by encouraging others to eat right and exercise at least 60 minutes a day.

“Everything is before or after school, so the kids really have to be dedicated because it’s all on their own time,” Hastert said.

Since Quick is moving onto Lincoln, it will be up to her to spearhead the play 60 group and get her community gardening project off of the ground.

Quick said she would got the idea for a community garden when she was visiting Alaska. While in that state, she noticed a lot of communities had common gardens for anyone to plant in. She thought that would be a great idea for this community.

Quick wants to first start her garden project at Lincoln and then expand it to MIS and the Green River High School.

“I would like to expand it to all the other schools,” Quick said. “So all can have access to it.”

She said a lot of kids she knows have never tasted a home-grown vegetable or fruit.

“Home grown fruits and veggies always taste better than the stores,” Quick said. “It provides healthy eating because it will be open to the school and community.”

Quick said while at the summit, she was fortunate enough to meet a teacher from Colorado who had gone through the entire community garden process.

This teacher offered to help Quick and Quick said she would take them that teacher up on the offer.